Free Republic

Dear Mr. Farago, Thank you for sharing your concern stemming from our participation in last summer’s Aspen Ideas Festival.

If you haven’t heard of the Aspen meeting, it’s one of those gatherings of the high and mighty around the world, UN heavyweights and Hollywood nitwits and politicians with big government causes, like Giffords. Here’s the text from that screenshot:

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is working on a book about gun control. Kelly said in a statement issued Tuesday by the book's publisher, Scribner. "As Second Amendment supporters and gun owners ourselves, we hope our book rouses the long-overdue conversation our country needs to make responsible changes to our gun laws so that no more precious lives are lost."

The husband of former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly, appeared before Oregon legislators on Thursday to speak in favor of expanded background checks for gun sales, as Republicans contended the Democrat-proposed legislation is "political posturing" as Oregon's May primary nears. Kelly spoke at a contentious public hearing before the state Senate Judiciary Committee, which began examination of a bill that would expand background checks to include private party gun sales. Kelly said he and Giffords support gun rights for sport, self-defense and "part of our national heritage." But he said Oregon's current law has "a loophole you could drive...

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Former Arizona U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a 2011 shooting, testified Tuesday before a Washington state House panel considering an initiative to expand firearm background checks in the state, telling lawmakers that "the nation is counting on you." With her husband, retired NASA space shuttle commander Mark Kelly, sitting next to her, Giffords spoke slowly and briefly to the panel that was taking public testimony on Initiative 594, which seeks to require background checks for all sales, including online sales and private transactions, such as those that occur at gun shows. The checks would be conducted...

On the eve of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords is challenging Washington leaders not to ignore gun violence. The former Democratic congresswoman is featured in a new television ad set to air immediately before and after the president’s speech. In the ad, Giffords faces the camera and says, “Congress is afraid of the gun lobby.”..... ....Kelly called the inaction on Capitol Hill “remarkable.” “Congress has done nothing because many politicians are listening to the gun lobby when they should be listening to their constituents,” he said.

In a commercial set to run just before and after President Obama's January 28 State of the Union (SOTU) address, Gabrielle Giffords looks into the camera and says, "Congress is afraid of the gun lobby." According to the Associated Press , Giffords will push background checks as a way to "make it harder for criminals and the mentally ill to get guns." She will say, "9 out of 10 Americans support background checks." On December 4, Breitbart News reported a CNN poll that showed "50 percent of Americans oppose more gun control," and only "49 percent" support it.

They are all excited over Moms:

Wednesday marks the 3-year anniversary of a shooting rampage in Tucson that killed six people and wounded 13 others including former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Tuesday night, Giffords reported significant progress on her recovery. In a New York Times essay titled "The Lessons of Physical Therapy," Giffords shares her battle back from the shooting that left her with damaged eyesight, trouble speaking, a paralyzed right arm and leg and the loss of her job. Giffords says after years of intensive physical therapy, she has regained some use of her right arm, saying her "arm moves when she tells it to."...

Two of the country’s leading advocates of enhanced background checks for gun purchases headlined Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley’s afternoon fundraiser today. Gabby Gifford is the former Arizona congresswoman who was nearly assassinated in 2011. “I’m working hard — lots of therapy: speech therapy, (physical) therapy and yoga, too, but my spirit’s strong as ever. I’m still fighting to make the world a better place and you can, too,” Giffords said. “Be passionate. Be courageous. Be your best.” Giffords spoke briefly after her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, addressed the crowd of Braley backers. He made the couple’s pitch for what...

“Mark ‘I wasn’t really buying that AR-15‘ Kelly is committing a felony right in front of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. It’s against New York State (NYS) law for someone to be in possession (i.e. holding) a handgun without a valid NYS Pistol license. Mark Kelly can’t have a NYS pistol license because he’s not a legal resident of New York.” An Empire State firearms attorney told TTAG that there’s an exception for firearms training but, as far as he can tell, not gun shows. Unless we hear otherwise, under Article 265 of New York State penal law,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I had an idea yesterday. That press conference that Obama did, it was juvenile. It was something that a spoiled rotten kid would do. It was petulant. It certainly was not presidential. He called that press conference for one reason: to use the words "hostage," "bomb thrower," and "extremist" for an hour. That's why he did the presser. So I told Cookie, I said, "Will you put together a montage. I want excerpts of Obama at the Gabby Giffords event, where he criticized this kind of behavior and where he urged everybody to stop...

Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, expressed his condolences Monday for the victims of the mass shooting in the Washington Navy Yard, saying “Gabby and I have been there.” “Gabby and I are holding the victims of today’s massacre at the Washington Navy Yard in our thoughts and prayers,” Kelly, who is a retired Navy pilot and NASA space shuttle commander, said in the statement from the PAC he and his wife co-founded Americans for Responsible Solutions. “[W]e know that nothing will bring solace to the families who lost loved ones. As the hours and days pass,...

It’s ironic that President Obama so often carps about politics — blaming “politics as usual” or “hyperpartisanship” for everything from the lack of economic growth to joblessness to climate change — when he is the most relentlessly partisan president in recent memory. Obama is a staunch left liberal who finds it very difficult to rise above politics and attempt to unite the country. Arguably, his very best speech, the one delivered in Tucson after the Gabby Giffords shooting, did transcend partisanship. It was an outlier. The president inserted himself into the Trayvon Martin story in a deeply irresponsible manner. Disregarding...

In Colorado there's a calling to vote Yes to recall anti-gun state senators - John Morse (D-11) and Angela Giron (D-3). These two can create a “a wave of fear that runs across every state legislator across the country.” To counter this recall, Gun control group headed by Mark Kelly & Gabby Giffords have television ads running to urge Coloradan to vote "NO" on the recall. westernshootingjournal.com/second-amendment/anti-gun-groups-mobilizing-in-colorado/

At first Paul would only say that Christie was “very precise” in his assertion that you have to win before you can govern. But then the gloves came off. “In other words, say anything, do anything, get elected first, and deceive the people in order to get elected,” Paul said. He accused both parties of saying “whatever they think they have to say” to get elected, but predicted those days are “coming to an end.” “The American people are waking up to the reality that something has to give,” Paul continued, “and it certainly isn’t by saying, ‘Well, say anything...

Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), the PAC of Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly focused on gun control, is being forced to refund money to contributors after being caught accepting illegal donations.One of the illegal donations was tied to Bette Midler's private family foundation and another to the Rupa and Bharat B. Bhatt Foundation. Midler's foundation gave $10,000 and the Bhatt foundation contributed $5,000.According to The Center For Public Integrity, both donations were "strictly prohibited" by the IRS:

Another anti-gun group gets caught with the proverbial hand in the cookie jar. This time Gabby Giffords has her prints all over it. The total amount of illegal contributions received was $15,250. That is not a small chunk of change. Giffords’ PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, received three illegal donations it has been discovered. This is not coincidence or a mistake. One could be a mistake and two could be coincidence. Three times is conspiracy to defraud. Publicintegrity.org reports: Singer, actress and comedian Bette Midler took to Twitter on April 18 to promote Gabby Giffords’ new gun control effort....

Gabby Giffords and her still-weightless astronaut husband are like a gun-grabbing Foghat, eternally playing the state fair circuit of American politics. Now they are literally going on tour again, hoping that their audience will forgo the old favorites and welcome a track off their new album. She’s really just a one-hit wonder hoping to match the airplay of her power ballad “I Suffered a Tragedy So I Have Special Moral Standing (To Advocate Stripping You of Your Fundamental Rights).” The sad truth is that she is the Psy of liberal advocacy, far past her 15 minutes yet valiantly trying to...

Documents revealing legal fees among 60 unsealed; taxpayers picked up the tab